Monday, January 28, 2013

Sisters from the Pilapila tribe in tribal maquilllage at the great marketplace of Djougou.

"Rarely in Africa is the body left in its natural condition. Modifications such as the cicatricial patterns on the torsos of the girls from Ganvie' are not purely ornamental; they indicate that the person belongs to a certain tribe, to a certain clan, or has undergone rites of initiation."

Believers In Magic

Girls of Ganvie, cheeks tatooed and bodies delicately marked by village seers with the symbols of their tribe.

Young Girls of Tofinu

Their white powdered necks looped in chains, waists and heads wrapped in cotton.

Girls of the Aizo Tribe

"The floating-market vendors along Dahomean lagoons which line the Atlantic shores of Dahomey powder their throats white."

"Differences in the clothes, maquillage, jewellery, scarifications and hairdressing reflect the different values and patterns of life of their peoples but, under this variety, is a common aesthetic orientation: We are in the world of art."

A Girl Vowed To Her God

"Chosen at birth, initiated in the mysteries of a vodun at a convent; a bride of ancestral spirits, her body embossed with the cicatrices of her cult."

Arms abound with bracelets, hair dressed with butter and charcoal - a Fulani, one of the proud pastoral nomads of unknown origin who wander throughout the savannahs from Senegal in the west to Cameroon in the east.

"Tatas" Of The Somba, each a private fortress for a patriarch and his family, near the hills of Atakora, where these animist tribesmen live.

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

"Young, handsome, intense, with his own marvelous way of looking and dressing, Yves Saint Laurent is probably the activist of the French Couture - he understands how young people feel, knows how they want to look."

- Yves Saint Laurent in his laced, collarless pullover of tobacco glove leather with corduroy jeans from his first ready-to-wear collection.Vogue July 1969

I was sixteen in '69 and not in a position to wear Saint Laurent. However - as a young fashionista during the mod era, and one fortunate enough to have been born into a successful ladies retail business, I was well aware of his importance to all things wonderful in the realm of the (fashion) senses.

He maintained his 'Boy Wonder' title, while others of equal import fell to the wayside, and remained the most applauded creative designer to hold court on the fashion scene, as well as the mise-en-scene, and well beyond the revolutionary fashion era of the sixties.

We Salute Him

Yves is shown in Marrakech, on a balcony overhanging the inner courtyard of his house - called El Haunch, "the serpent" - which he had owned since 1967 in the ancient medina, the native quarter. There he spent three months of every year preparing his collections, and the month of August relaxing.

Dior's pale pink chiffon shirtwaist complete with chiffon cartwheel and a new fall of pearls

DIOR

In Paris, where the big season is May through July, ball dresses, such as this one (photographed at the Paris Opera), willl float like pale bells over parquet floors, terraced flags, in garden marquees.